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The 2018 garden touring season has been robust starting in March and continuing well into June. The first weekend of the month was a garden conservancy open day in Santa Cruz . There were only three gardens open and this post shares my favorite. The GC directory did not name the owner, but he was a vivid presence rushing about answering questions and even digging up offsets and taking cuttings to give to his visitors. A serious plant collector with some really great plants. I have to believe he is a known presence in Santa Cruz horticultural circles-if there is such a thing .

This is what I saw as I approached the house from my parking spot a few door down. It looked promising .

I immediately noticed the mound-y grass between the flagstones and at the base of the palm. I'm pretty certain this is Zoysia, which grows agonizingly slow, so must have been here quite a long spell.

Once I turned in my ticket I headed down the path behind the check-in table and this was what I saw. A…

On Saturday (my traditional vase building day) I was not at home , but instead happily installed in a small inn adjacent to the headlands on our north coast. I decided to take my clippers (always a pair in my car) and create a small vase of the wildflowers and grasses that carpet fields along the bluffs.

Sadly, the only things I can identify are the Briza maxima and our native Achellia. I am going to try to find a guidebook to the grasses and wildflowers of this area -a place I visit at least twice a year- so that I am not so ignorant.

I thought it might be fun to limit the flower choices to the umbells this week. I wish I had a nice spot outside to do these arrangements , but instead I make a big mess on my diminutive kitchen counter . At least it's close to the coffee.

I like my result, but I can tell you that the Pulmonaria leaves lasted about an hour before they started to wilt.

I used Achellia 'Moonshine' , Trachelium 'Hamer Panodora' (not open all the way so I am interested to see if it develops in the vase) Orlaya, Cenolophium denudatum and Angelica strica purpurea.

Blooms are abundant this month and I only captured a fraction of the floral action in my garden . I might have to do a Bloomday version 2.0 later in the month to share all the flowers that didn't make the cut for this post.

Allium sphaerocephalon is happily bobbing it's head in several locations . I'm going to do a bit of camouflage planting later this year , hopefully to hide the crappy foliage for next summer.

Clematis 'Arabella' , a bloomday regular til fall.

I dug up all my Digitalis 'Illumination Flame' a couple years ago and have re-instated it this year. You can't beat it for longevity of bloom and performance in awkward exposures. It seems to get by just fine with once a week watering.

Oh yes, it's Lobelia tupa. When I planted this a few years ago I had absolutely no expectations of how it would react to life in my garden. I never see it anywhere in my town, the only nurseries that that are even remotely local (Annie's and Digging…